Lawsuit alleges ‘horrific’ conditions at US immigration facility in Chicago

Two immigrants detained in Chicago, Illinois, have filed a class-action lawsuit against top officials at the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), alleging that they were denied access to legal counsel and subjected to “inhumane and unlawful” treatment.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a US rights watchdog, announced the emergency lawsuit (PDF) on Friday.

It highlights deteriorating conditions at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview since President Donald Trump began his immigration crackdown earlier this year.

“Everyone, no matter their legal status, has the right to access counsel and to not be subject to horrific and inhumane conditions,” Alexa Van Brunt, the director of the MacArthur Justice Center’s Illinois office and lead counsel on the suit, said in a news statement.

“Community members are being kidnapped off the streets, packed in hold cells, denied food, medical care, and basic necessities, and forced to sign away their legal rights.”

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Pablo Moreno Gonzalez and Felipe Agustin Zamacona, are immigrants from Mexico who have lived in the US for more than 30 years. Both are currently detained inside the Broadview facility.

Their suit names senior Trump officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and ICE Director Todd Lyons, as defendants.

The complaint is the latest to allege abusive conditions and neglect at immigration facilities. A similar class-action suit was filed against the Trump administration in August, highlighting the detention centre at 26 Federal Plaza in New York City.

Friday’s complaint, however, zooms in on the Broadview facility, a two-story office building that serves as the “primary processing facility” for ICE in the Chicago area.

Lawyers for the two immigrants, however, argue that the number of immigrants housed in the facility outstrips its ability to safely handle them.

According to ICE data cited in the lawsuit, nearly 5,202 people have been held at Broadview between January and July of this year. At any given time, at least 200 people are inside the facility.

But the numbers have increased since the Trump administration launched what it calls Operation Midway Blitz on September 8. Led by Noem and the Department of Homeland Security, Midway Blitz was designed to increase immigration arrests in the Chicago area.

That push has placed strain on the Broadview facility, according to the class action. It explains that, while Broadview was intended as a “holding facility” for short-term detention, it is now being used for “warehousing people” for “days on end”.

“ICE officers have even held eight women in an isolation room designed for a single person for at least a day,” the lawsuit alleged.

“The increased number of immigration arrests during Operation Midway Blitz has resulted in overcrowding at Broadview so extreme that people are forced to stand in cramped conditions. There often is not even room for detainees to lie down on the floor.”

It also describes rooms with bodily fluid on the wall, overflowing toilets and infestations of cockroaches and centipedes.

“We told the guards that the place was at full capacity, but they kept bringing people inside,” one anonymous woman is quoted as saying in the lawsuit. “They treated us like animals, or worse than animals, because no one treats their pets like that.”

The lawsuit also asserts that detainees have been denied access to adequate food, water, hygiene and medical care.

While some detainees have been allowed to use a cellphone or landline for a brief period to contact legal representation or family, the complaint says that the conversations have been held in a central area where federal officers were able to listen to the conversations.

Some detainees have been denied access to outside communication altogether, the lawsuit added, and lawyers and religious representatives have been prohibited from entering.

While immigration facilities are subject to oversight by members of Congress, the lawsuit alleges that federal representatives have likewise been barred from entering the facility.

“Access to counsel is not a privilege. It is a right,” Nate Eimer, a partner at the law firm Eimer Stahl and co-counsel in the lawsuit, said in a statement.

“We can debate immigration policy, but there is no debating the denial of legal rights and holding those detained in conditions that are not only unlawful but inhumane.”

The Trump administration has consistently denied allegations of abusive conditions in ICE facilities.

But Operation Midway Blitz has been the subject of intense scrutiny since its launch, as reports of abuse mount.

Advocates have accused the aggressive immigration operation, often carried out by armed, masked agents, of demonstrating a “pattern of extreme brutality”.

Incidents include a recent case where tear gas was deployed near a neighbourhood Halloween parade, with young children present.